The Role of Unions in Achieving a Family-friendly Workplace

Abstract

The role of unions in achieving a family-friendly organization can be pivotal through bargaining for family-friendly provisions. This role is determined not only by union monopoly power and the gendered structure of collective voice of the workforce, but also by national trends in the organization of work and the role of trade unions, as well as the relationship between individual unions and organizations. This case study of a New Zealand local government organization particularly focuses on the contrasts in family-friendly provisions of collective agreements negotiated by different unions at the same workplace. Using Gregory and Milner’s (2009) framework of ‘opportunity structures’, the article confirms that unions may have a key role in the provision of family-friendly policy, and provides a contextual picture of the relationships between family-friendly policy and organizational and union characteristics. This article suggests that strengthening the positions of unions and collective bargaining may be an effective route for the instigation of family-friendly policy.

Paths towards Family‐friendly Working Time Arrangements: Comparing Workplaces in Different Countries and Industries

“…Although employee representatives are equipped with co‐determination rights in Austria, we do not expect a strong positive effect on work–family policies because the prevailing male breadwinner model is the ideal family form in conservative countries. This would be in line with the general argument of Ravenswood and Markey () that family‐friendly policy is not seen as relevant for unions in male‐dominated environments (or with men as the dominant breadwinners in our case). In contrast, the strong employee representation in family‐friendly Denmark should have a positive impact because it can effectively improve the combination of work and family life within the context of widely accepted working mothers and fathers.…”

“…Employees with high general skills are very important for firms, so workplace benefits are helpful instruments (Fleckenstein and Seeleib‐Kaiser ) to attract and keep them in competition with other firms. In addition, employees with high general skills such as professional staff are in a powerful position to ask for additional benefits (Evans ; Ravenswood and Markey ; Wood et al ). In sum, we expect employers to provide family‐friendly working time arrangements more often to employees with high general skills and less often to employees with specific and low general skills (Hypothesis 1).…”

“…Employees, their representatives, and trade unions can influence the introduction and provision of workplace family policies in bargaining agreements (Berg et al ; Seeleib‐Kaiser and Fleckenstein ). Therefore, we can expect more family‐friendly workplace policies in firms and industries with strong trade unions or where employee representatives are able to negotiate favourable conditions for employees (Budd and Mumford ; Fleckenstein and Seeleib‐Kaiser ; Gregory and Milner ; Ravenswood and Markey ) (Hypothesis 3a). Beyond establishing family‐friendly working time arrangements, employee representatives can inform employees about existing policies and agreements (Budd and Mumford ).…”

“…Therefore, this article contributes to the literature by answering first, under what conditions employees have access to firm‐level family‐friendly policies, and second, what differences exist across countries and industries. The majority of studies focus either on single countries (Budd and Mumford ; Heywood and Jirjahn ; Ravenswood and Markey ; Rigby and O'Brien‐Smith ; Wood et al ) or analyze a large number of countries and industries together (Chung , ; Den Dulk et al ; Evans ). In the first case, we cannot know whether the results hold true for other countries, and in the second case, we only know the average effect estimated for all countries.…”

A case study of regulatory confusion: Paid parental leave and public servants

“…Such opportunity structures arose when several conditions were in place, including when gender equality was promoted by supranational and national bodies and when unions were able to complement equality regulation (Gregory and Milner, 2009: 124-125). Other researchers (Ravenswood and Markey, 2011;Williamson, 2012) have subsequently replicated these findings. Baird and Murray (2014) found that the strong community and union campaign for a national PPL scheme in Australia resulted in a collectively bargained increase in the quantum of PPL across the public sector (p. 59).…”